Chapter 12
Haley
I cried all the way through the six hour flight to San Francisco. I cried when I spoke to the lady at the car rental agency. I cried for most of the 35. By the time I pull up to my mother’s sloped, brick house on a hill in Santa Cruz, I think I’m all cried out. But when she comes out the door and screams “Sweetie!” I start bawling harder than I have since I lost my first talent show at eleven years old.
She carries me inside, through the seventies décor and the antique furniture she never gave away, past the stacks of records and the acoustic guitars she hardly uses anymore but still loves, into the living room with the thick carpet and the smell of oak that I never notice until I’ve been away a while. She places me on the velour couch, drapes a hand-crocheted afghan around my shoulders, and sits beside me.
“Haley?” she says in a voice as light as a summer breeze. “What’s the matter, sweetie?”
I look at her through the wetness of my eyes. Without the crows feet and the wrinkles around her jaw, she’d still look just like the photo on the TV. She’s still got the long, straight hippie-hair, still wears long, flowing, patterned dresses, and still has the eyes that seem too pure for anyone but her.
“You don’t know?” I say, through sobs.
“Know what?”
“What happened on the tour.”
“I know everything that happened on the tour!” she smiles, nodding toward the stack of newspapers and magazines on the coffee table, the scissors and glue she uses to cut and paste clippings set neatly beside them. That’s when I realize she wouldn’t know about the Rex Bentley leak anyway – she doesn’t use the internet, barely turns the TV on – and when I think about having to tell her everything that happened, I break down again, folding into my lap.
“Haley, shhh. Come on now,” she says, pulling me to her and stroking my back. “You’re gonna have to tell me what it is if you want me to help, baby.”
The crying subsides, more from the fact that I have no more energy to cry than that I’m over it, and I sit back up and stare blankly at the switched-off TV.
“They know about…about Rex Bentley,” I say, sniffing.
“Who knows?”
I grit my teeth and force the ugly answer out. “Everyone.”
Her brow furrows in concern. “How? Did you tell them?”
“I told…someone. Someone I thought I could trust.”
There’s a pause so silent I feel like I can hear the dust moving in the sunlight.
“Brando?” my mom says, and even from her, even in that gentle, sing-song voice, it makes my stomach feel acidic.
“What?” I say, jumping up from the couch. “When did you— wait. Wait. Who— when—”
“He called me.” The look on her face is pure confusion, pure innocence. And I’m livid.
“Oh my God! Oh my God! No!” I shout, ignoring the dull ache that still lingers in my throat. I pace up and down the living room, my fingers furiously rubbing my frown. Infinite sadness turning into blinding rage in seconds. “No! This is … whoa! That is too far. That is way too far. First he violates my life. Then he sells me out. Now he’s trying to turn you against me?! This is…oh my God! I’m so pissed right now!”
“Haley! Calm down, it was just—”
“Who does he think he is? I mean, who does that? My own mother!? It’s one thing to mess with me, but this is over the line.” I clench my fist and jab it into my palm as I continue to pace even faster. “He’s going to pay for this, I swear. I don’t know how, I don’t know… He’s going to pay! Ragh! I could strangle him!”
“Haley! Listen to me!” I glance over at my mom. “And stop pacing!” I stop and stand there, chest heaving, fists clenched, my blood boiling. “He called me weeks ago. He just wanted to offer me tickets to the first show on the tour. He said if I wanted to come he would make sure I had the best seats in the house.”
I stand there, still furious, but my anger a little less focused.
“What? That’s all?”
“Well,” Mom says with a strange, sly grin, “we did talk a little bit.”
“About … what?” I say, putting a huge pause in the middle of the words. I sit on the lounge chair beside the couch and lean forward to express my deep interest in whatever the fuck happened between Brando and my mother.
“Nothing important. Don’t worry,” she says, way too casually. “I asked him about you. He told me you were doing just great. That your music was really striking a chord with people. He seems to be a very competent manager. Very invested in you. And…”
“And?”
My mom smiles warmly as she relives the conversation. “And he mentioned that you told him about my own music. The album I recorded in seventy-eight. He said he’d love to hear it. I told him if he ever found a copy to be sure to make me a copy, since they only printed five hundred of them.”
“Mom!” I say, when I notice how happy she looks. “Don’t look so pleased when you’re talking about him! He’s a … he’s an asshole.”
“He can’t be that bad,” she says. “He promised to find that record and let me know as soon as he did.”
I groan with every fiber of my being.
“Wait,” I say, holding a palm up. “I don’t understand. How did you get from that conversation that he was the one I told about…the secret.”
“Sweetie,” my mom says in a way that makes me feel thirteen again, “I might be old but some things don’t change. The sound of a man’s voice when he’s talking about a girl he’s infatuated with is one of them.”
“Mom! He’s just my manager!” But the lie comes out sounding defensive and weak, and I know I’m not convincing her.
She smiles gently. “I’m not judging.”
“Fine. But still…”
“Listen, Haley, the kind of man who would look for a rare, limited edition record for a girl’s mother is also the kind of guy who would go to the ends of the earth for that girl – young woman, I mean – and her secrets.”
“And is apparently also the kind of man who would spill those secrets to the whole world?” I say, slumping back against the chair in exhausted defeat.
“Are you sure about that?” my mom asks.
“Yes! It’s exactly the kind of thing he’d do. Probably for publicity or something.”
Mom’s expression remains skeptical. “Did he tell you that?”
“Of course not. He said he didn’t tell anyone.”
“So why do you think it was him?”
“Because…he was the only one who knew! And he’s lied to me before.”
My mom gives me the same sigh-and-critical-look combination that she gives her music students who skip their homework.
“Haley…”
“Mom…” I say, in the same voice I used when I wanted to skip school. “The whole music thing…it just sucks. Someone messed up my guitar before a gig. And way before that, Brando made a bet with some douche bag that he would make my song a hit. One minute the label won’t give us a video budget, the next they send me on tour with Lexi. They basically forced me to sign with Majestic by throwing a bunch of lawyers at us saying I’d have to repay the studio time back myself if I didn’t. This business is just full of snakes and lies and people playing fucked up games. It’s not as simple as it looks. You don’t understand.”
“Don’t I?”
I look at her soft face, barely able to conceal the hurt she feels.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
She shrugs it off and smiles. “It sounds to me like the music industry hasn’t changed one bit, honestly.”
I let out a little laugh, but the smile disappears quickly when I remember. “The point is, Brando probably did this. And he probably thought he was doing me a favor, that it would help my career.”
“Haley,” my mom says with an air of finality, “the - ‘secret’ – as you call it, was never going to stay secret for long once you got your name out there. Do you know how many people found out about me and Rex at the time? How many of his biographers I’ve had to fend off insinuating questions from? What about the strange letters I get from his insane fans that think they’ve made some connection between us? You’re right. I don’t know this Brando, but I do know people. And it’s worth giving them the benefit of the doubt every once in a while.”
I nod slowly, taking in her words, wishing I believed them. “I’d like to say thanks for the support, Mom. But the truth is that I’m more confused than ever right now.”
“So listen to your heart instead of your head,” she says simply. As if it’s that easy. “Now sit tight and let me make you some tea.”